CHARLESTON, S.C. ­– The Citadel basketball team battled back to trail by just six at the break, but Samford University scored 49 points in the second half to hold off the Bulldogs comeback attempt, 80-64, on Saturday afternoon.

Elijah Morgan scored a career-high 29 points, going 9-of-16 (56.3%) from the floor while tying a career-best with seven 3-pointers (IUPUI 11/25/22) on 14 attempts.

Quentin Millora-Brown added 13 points and seven boards while Madison Durr just missed a double-double with 11 points and nine rebounds to go along with four assists.

First Half:

• A driving layup had SAM doubling up CIT 16-8 at the 12-minute mark.
• SAM added a baseline floater to hold a double-digit edge, 27-14, with 3:14 left in the first half.
• The Citadel responded with an 11-4 run to end the half trailing by just six, 31-25, at the intermission.

Second Half:

• SAM opened the second stanza on a 15-2 run, pushing the margin back to 19, 46-27, at the under 16 media timeout.
• Back-to-back makes from beyond the arc by SAM stretched the differential over 20, 52-27, right out of the timeout.
• A Morgan fastbreak three trimmed the deficit to under 20, 52-34, forcing SAM to talk things over before his layup cut it to 14, halfway through the second 20 minutes of play.
• SAM once again answered, this time with a 11-5 spurt to extend the lead back over 20 points, 70-49, forcing a Citadel timeout with 6:28 remaining.
• The Citadel would only get as close as 15, 77-62, with 1:59 to go as they fell to Samford 80-64.

Up Next:

The Citadel hits the road on Wednesday, January 10 as it makes the in-state trip to Furman for a 7 pm tip.